


Domesticity

by Aja, earlgreytea68



Series: Alter Ego [2]
Category: Shenanigans (Original Universe)
Genre: M/M, Shenanigans (Original Universe) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 21:42:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11768955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aja/pseuds/Aja, https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: Nicholas nibbled his way up Elliot’s neck and said, “Tell me about your day. Tell me of your social media shenanigans.”Elliot said, instead of anything about any of that, “Do you know we only have six more months on this lease?”





	Domesticity

They were married in August by the sea.

When Nicholas said to Elliot, “What aesthetic do you want our wedding to have?” Elliot answered, “Us. The aesthetic of us,” and after that they made decisions for no reason at all. Where once Elliot might have said, “But why _August_? What is its significance to us?” it was enough that once, lazing on a boat to Provincetown, Nicholas had said, “Summertime is the _best_ season here, these New England summers live up to their billing,” and Elliot had remembered that. Nicholas liked summer, and Elliot was fairly indifferent to seasons, and so they were married in August, for just those reasons and no others.

And once they’d chosen summer, having it outside by the sea only made sense, since that was what Nicholas loved about summertime in New England. Elliot’s mom found them the place, an old house with a gracious lawn that swept down to the Atlantic Ocean, and Elliot was in love with the _Great-Gatsby_ -ness of it, and Nicholas said, “Is that what you want for the aesthetic? _Great Gatsby_?” and Elliot said quizzically, “No, I want _us_.”

They booked the place, and Elliot looked at his wedding planning list, of all the decisions left to make, and he was looking at it when Nicholas came home from work and said, “Shenanigan has torn up a tissue,” and kissed the back of Elliot’s neck where he was seated at the kitchen table and, “Ian Purrtis looks disapproving.”

Elliot said, “It isn’t about the aesthetic.”

Nicholas was reaching for a glass. “You’re wrong, Shenanigan has an unerring sense of aesthetic,” he said, filling the glass with water.

“The wedding,” Elliot said. “Our wedding’s not about aesthetic to me. It’s about _us_. You know that, right? I’m not viewing this as an opportunity to throw the social event of the year.”

Nicholas took a sip of water and regarded Elliot carefully and said, “Why not?”

“Because I don’t need to marry you to throw the social event of the year. I need to marry you to _marry you_. It’s not about aesthetic, it’s just about us.”

Jane Pawsten jumped up on the kitchen counter and arched her way under Nicholas’s petting hand.

Nicholas said, smiling a fond Colin Firth smile at Elliot, “Okay.”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, we are still going to have a fucking kickass attractive wedding,” said Elliot. “It’s just that that’s not for _show_. We don’t have to play the part of happy in-love couple. We just are the happy in-love couple. And our wedding will be kickass because we’re attractive people with excellent taste who love each other.”

Nicholas leaned over to kiss Elliot, Colin-Firth smile still intact, and said, “I don’t mind it being a little over the top, you know.”

“I’ll see what I can do for you,” Elliot told him around the kiss. “Just to live up to my reputation.”

But in the end they were married in August by the sea in what their friends might have termed a surprisingly typical fashion, except for the fact that maybe, if they’d thought about it, they would have realized that Elliot these days never made important things about aesthetics.

Nicholas dealt with having his family in closer proximity than he had in years. Well, really Elliot dealt with that for him, with his insistent charm and unerring social tact that he could wield when he felt like it, and Nicholas was so grateful for it that Elliot benefitted from some very excellent sex and said later, panting, “Fuck, I will be nice to your family for you _all the time_ , I would have done it _sooner_ ,” and Nicholas laughed and said, “Shut up,” and kissed Elliot around his delighted laughter, grinning into the kiss himself.

Elliot’s father invited so many of his law partners and Elliot rolled his eyes so hard at that and his mother told him to stop and then the night of the wedding his father spent so much time saying over and over, “This is my son Elliot” and “Have you met my son Elliot?” with such obvious pride in his voice that Elliot felt like such an idiot for not just letting his father show him off before, how had he never realized how much his father wanted to show him off.

Finally one of his father’s friends said, “You should let your son dance with his new husband,” and even though the escape wasn’t really necessary, everyone did laugh, and release Elliot, who went in search of Nicholas, who he found at the table of college friends. Who had clearly been drinking, because they greeted him loudly and with raised glasses of alcohol.

Elliot collapsed into the chair next to Nicholas.

“Hi,” Nicholas said to him. “Are you done being made much of?”

“Never,” said Jonah. “Elliot is never done with that.”

“It’s my wedding day,” Elliot said. “If you don’t get to be made much of on your wedding day, when do you get it?”

“Jonah, let’s get married,” said Caroline suddenly. “We could rake in gifts and be made much of.”

“I like how you think,” said Jonah.

“Look, you’ve started a trend,” said Hazel.

“Elliot in a nutshell,” said Jonah.

“I take offense,” said Evan. “ _We_ started the trend.”

“The first person to do something can’t start a trend,” said Elliot. “It’s only after the second person does it that it becomes a trend.”

“I feel like you literally planned to make sure you were the second person married,” Evan said sourly.

“Nicholas planned that,” Elliot said. “Nicholas has been the schemer in this relationship all along.”

“Shh,” said Nicholas. “Don’t blow my cover now, Richelieu.” He reached forward for his glass, and his sleeve with his ruby cufflinks rode up a little, revealing his watch, and Elliot frowned suddenly and grabbed at Nicholas’s wrist.

“Is that the _time_?” he said.

“Yes,” Nicholas said. “We have to kick everybody out soon.”

“I have a surprise!” Elliot said. “You have to come with me!”

“I thought you weren’t the schemer in the relationship,” Jonah said, amused.

Elliot ignored him, pulling Nicholas up and after him.

“What surprise?” Nicholas said, bewildered, as Elliot dragged him along the lawn toward the ocean.

Elliot stopped suddenly and pulled Nicholas in for a kiss and said, “I’ve had a great day. Such a great day.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Nicholas said, kissing back, even though he still sounded bewildered.

“You thought I’d be over the top,” Elliot said, drawing back and smiling at him. “Give me five more minutes.”

Nicholas tipped his head and said slowly, “Okay. You know you didn’t _have_ to be--”

“Oh, I know. But still. Five minutes. Sit with me.”

They sat on the lawn, heedless of the suits they were wearing, and Elliot leaned against Nicholas and yawned and said, “Everyone wanted to talk about business analyzing. Like, _everyone_.”

“You’re a big deal,” Nicholas said, a smile in his voice, as he nosed behind Elliot’s ear. “Everyone’s in awe of you.”

“You’re an actual _doctor_ ,” Elliot pointed out.

“Doctors are a dime a dozen. _Business analysts_ , however. You’re so deliciously mysterious. I’m sure my family just thinks you work for the mob and it’s all about money laundering. I mean, you _are_ from Boston.”

“I would rock mob aesthetic,” Elliot said confidently.

“You would at that. And you’d be a good assassin.”

“You think?”

“What’s an assassination if not a shenanigan with a very definitive outcome?”

“This is a very dark conversation for our wedding night,” Elliot remarked, “but if you want me to role-play highly-paid assassin, I’m all for it.”

Nicholas Elliot-laughed. “And what would I be? The mark?”

“Hmm,” Elliot considered. “Yes. The mark I can’t kill.”

“Because you fuck me instead?”

“Yes. What an excellent roleplay this is turning out to be.”

“And then do I hide you from your mob bosses when you fail to kill me?”

“No, I probably just kill you in the morning,” said Elliot.

Nicholas chuckled and bit Elliot’s ear and said, “Ruthless.”

Elliot laughed and said, “I’m an _assassin_.”

And then fireworks burst over their heads, reflected in the ocean below them.

Nicholas fell silent staring, as the sparks wheeled through the night sky and the booms echoed off the cliffs around them. When the display finally ended, and the lingering guests and other people on the shore burst into scattered applause, he said softly, “Fuck. You didn’t have to do that. But thank you.”

Elliot smiled at the tone of his voice, and Nicholas almost always sounded affectionate, but _that_ particular Nicholas-tone was a special one. He said, “Happy wedding, _il mio cuore_. I had a cheesy line all prepared about how you make me see fireworks or whatever. Do you want to hear it?”

“Save it for the roleplay,” Nicholas said.

Elliot laughed.

***

Their apartment was a modern three-bedroom in a brand new building in Kendall. Elliot had chosen it: the area, the building, the apartment. He’d researched meticulously. Kendall, he’d thought, was a step up from Quincy, well-located, burgeoning. The building had every amenity you could hope for. The apartment was sprawling by Boston standards, with plenty of room to spread out. They’d moved because their previous apartment had grown too small for them, what with the four cats and Elliot working entirely from home. Elliot’s office space had always spilled out from the actual office, but it was more noticeable when they were trying to share with four cats, and when Elliot was working multiple jobs, since Elliot had started freelancing social media promotion when Nicholas had been busy with his residency and had kept it up because he loved it. So Elliot always had an extra project or two that seemed to invade living space. Nicholas had thought the third bedroom might be a spare room for when they had overnight guests. They never had overnight guests. So Elliot had just lifted his eyebrows and colonized the third bedroom as his extra project space.

He colonized the living room as well most of the time, he had to admit.

Elliot admitted he took up a lot of space for one person, not that Nicholas seemed to mind, thankfully. And Elliot also admitted, secretly, to himself, that...he fucking hated the apartment. He had chosen it _so_ carefully, after _so_ much research, and when he had talked Nicholas into it he knew Nicholas had been skeptical. Sleek and new and modern was the opposite of their previous apartments, the opposite of their decorating style. But their old apartment had been full of “quirky charm” in that everything was always breaking: every kitchen appliance, the hot water, the heating. This brand new place came with _central air_. Elliot thought it would be heaven.

But he hated it. It was _generic_. There was nothing interesting about it. Their Berkshires couch looked so out of place that Nicholas had brought up buying another one, until Elliot had looked so horrified that Nicholas had dropped it. But Elliot felt like they had a beautifully curated selection of furnishings accumulated over many years together and none of it fit right in this new apartment. Well, it _fit_. Elliot just didn’t like it. He thought the whole apartment felt cold and sterile, like living in a hospital. He thought his voice echoed when he spoke, bouncing off all the hard surfaces.

When Elliot had shown Jane the apartment, she had lifted her eyebrows and said, “Hmm.”

When Elliot had shown Caroline the apartment, she had said, “Are you already going through a midlife crisis?”

When Elliot had shown Blake the apartment, he had said, “You could hold fundraisers in here. Are you going to hold fundraisers in here? I could emcee.”

When Elliot had shown Hazel the apartment, she had said, “Oh, good, we can have podcast meetings here.”

When Elliot had shown Jonah the apartment, he had said, “Oooh, I like it!”  

Which pretty much settled Elliot’s attitude toward the apartment.

When Elliot had shown Nicholas the apartment, though, before anyone else had seen it, Nicholas had said, “It doesn’t seem much like our aesthetic.”

“It’s our _grown-up_ aesthetic,” Elliot had replied, in full-on promotional mode.

Nicholas had said, “You spend much more time in the apartment than I do, so I’m going to defer to you on this, but I will say it’s very different. It’s not very warm or cozy.”

“Grown-ups aren’t warm and cozy,” Elliot had said dismissively.

Nicholas had given him a fond Elliot-look and said, “Elliot,” with equal fondness, shaking his head, and let him have his way on the apartment.

Nicholas was devious that way. Nicholas always calmly acquiesced to Elliot’s schemes, with gentle suggestions of skepticism, and never said _I told you so_ afterward, but Elliot knew that he was _thinking_ it.

“He doesn’t always know _everything_ ,” Elliot told Shenanigan, who had come up to try to monopolize Elliot’s lap from the other cats.

Shenanigan mrowred.

Elliot sighed. “You always take his side.”

Shenanigan mrowred again.

Elliot looked across at Ian Purrtis on the other couch--the new non-Berkshires couch that Elliot was still warming to--and said, “Tell Shenanigan that Nicholas doesn’t always know everything.”

Ian Purrtis did come over to join him and Shenanigan and purred and purred and eventually forced himself room on Elliot’s lap.

Jane Pawsten and Tumble were trying to decide if they could also fit on Elliot’s lap or if they had to settle for his shoulder or just being adjacent to him when the buzzer rang and Elliot said, “Okay, cats, I have to get to work now,” and ejected all of them.

The only time all of his cats were united was in their disappointment over his having to move.

Jonah and Hazel and Kate and Blake and Caroline and Jane all settled in his living room on various surfaces and ran through the latest list of life events. Elliot wasn’t sure when he had turned into the marketing arm for everything going on--podcasts, plays, comedy routines, photography shows--but he clearly was. Jane lazed around drinking baijiu. She claimed she was there for aesthetic support. She was really there because at some point nights at Deep Ellum had become nights at Elliotolas’s. Elliot wasn’t really complaining. It was convenient for him.

“Let me ask you something,” Jonah was saying, when the door opened and Nicholas walked in from his late night of office hours. “Do you roll around in cat hair? How do you get it all over you like that?”

“The cats drape themselves over every available inch of Elliot’s body,” Nicholas answered, dropping his keys onto the kitchen counter.

The group chorused hellos to him. Nicholas joined them in the living room and collapsed onto a tiny space on the Berkshires couch that Caroline squeezed over to make available for him and said, “Say adult things to me that aren’t about ailments.”

“But really,” Caroline said teasingly, “I’ve got this thing on my foot I wanted you take a look at.”

Nicholas gave her a look, and Caroline laughed at him, and then started talking about photography. And then everyone filled Nicholas in on what they’d discussed over the course of the evening, their projects and their trials and tribulations with the project and the social media, all the social media, Elliot’s life was social media when it wasn’t Nicholas or cats (or his actual job), but he had to admit he loved it.

Elliot sat on the floor, with cats coming out of the woodwork to scatter all around him, correcting his friends when they said ridiculous things, and feeling the weight of Nicholas’s gaze on him all the time, like a warm blanket draped over him. Elliot fucking loved his life, he thought. Except for this apartment.

Everyone eventually drifted back to their own homes, and Nicholas saw everyone out because Nicholas was a good host that way, while Elliot saved everything into various folders and gave Twitter and Tumblr one last glance. When he was done checking on all of his many contingents of fans, Nicholas was sprawled on the Berkshires couch, arrayed with cats, and scrolling through something on his phone, and it was quiet, and lovely, and perfect, and Elliot felt like he loved everything in the universe fiercely and Nicholas most of all.

Elliot stood and crawled onto Nicholas, sending cats scattering with offended yowls, and Nicholas put his phone aside and smiled at him as he finished fitting them together, stretching a little before he settled into the luxurious cuddle of snuggling Nicholas.

Elliot fucking _loved_ his life.

“Hello, Richelieu,” Nicholas said, softly, fondly, and carded his hands through his hair.

Elliot was probably smiling brilliantly at Nicholas but he couldn’t help it. That reaction to being called _Richelieu_ , and understanding all of the drowning affection behind it, had never dampened. “Hi,” he said, and kissed him. “How was your day?”

“Mmm,” said Nicholas into Elliot’s mouth, sweeping his hands down to rest on the small of Elliot’s back. “It’s improving.”

***

They could see, from their apartment, the skyline across the river. It wasn’t the prime skyline view, because they couldn’t afford that, but it was a beautiful skyline view, twinkling city lights, and it meant their bedroom was slightly limned in silver. Nicholas, a hand on Elliot’s hip, was relaying a story about one of his patients, murmuring it into the skin of Elliot’s shoulder because he couldn’t stop nuzzling at him. Elliot loved that about Nicholas, the way he nuzzled at him, his lips grazing against his skin, his hands always a little greedy and a little possessive in the way they grabbed at Elliot after a day away from him, and Elliot _loved_ this.

Nicholas nibbled his way up Elliot’s neck and said, “Tell me about your day. Tell me of your social media shenanigans.”

Elliot said, instead of anything about any of that, “Do you know we only have six more months on this lease?”

Nicholas’s mouth paused, before resuming, with a small nip under Elliot’s jaw. “I didn’t know that. How very interesting.”

“Right,” said Elliot. “So.” It wasn’t terribly eloquent but generally Nicholas didn’t need Elliot to be super-eloquent, which was another thing Elliot loved about Nicholas.

Nicholas tugged playfully on Elliot’s earlobe with his teeth and then drew back and propped himself up on his elbow, leaving his other hand comfortingly on Elliot’s hip, and said, with studied nonchalance, “Are you thinking we should renew or that we should look for someplace else?”

Elliot huffed out a frustrated exhalation. “Nicholas.”

“No, no,” Nicholas said with exaggerated patience, “I’m trying to understand. Do you not _like_ this sleek, slick, modern apartment we have here?”

“Yes, yes,” Elliot said, “you were right.”

Nicholas leaned down to kiss him, and he was laughing around the kiss, and Elliot couldn’t even be _embarrassed_ or _grumbly_ about how wrong he’d been and how right Nicholas had been, when Nicholas was going to give him smiling kisses like that. “I didn’t know I’d be right, you know,” Nicholas said. “I just was fairly convinced that this isn’t really your aesthetic. This was you playing at the aesthetic you thought you should have. It’s a very beautiful aesthetic but you like warm, cozy, off-kilter things, broken in already, somewhat worn, with some romantic history you can make up in your head. Like our Berkshires couch.”

“That couch is objectively the best, though,” Elliot said. “Like, in any couch competition, that couch would be crowned the victor.”

“Okay,” said Nicholas. “So we’ll find a place that suits our couch.”

Elliot said slowly, “I don’t know. I was thinking...that maybe the reason I got it so wrong with this apartment...is that we don’t need an apartment anymore. We need _space_ , and things that feel like our own, and I was cranky over the landlord at the old place for entirely the wrong reason. I think maybe I kind of want to buy a house.”

“We can buy a house,” said Nicholas without missing a beat. “Absolutely we can buy a house.”

Elliot narrowed his eyes. “You wanted to buy a house six months ago.”

Nicholas admitted, “I thought maybe yes, that was what we needed, and why you were so frustrated.”

“Why didn’t you _say_ anything?” Elliot demanded.

“I did. I said, ‘Maybe we should think about looking farther out, a place with a yard,’ and you had a very pretty aesthetic meltdown about the accessibility of coffee shops and places with pink cocktails and you made a little map with public wi-fi hotspot information, I mean, it was very impressive. And I thought, Hey, there’s a possibility I’m wrong, and Elliot really would be miserable in the suburbs, so I dropped it.”

“But if _you_ want to live in the suburbs--” Elliot began.

“Elliot, I’ll live wherever,” Nicholas said. “I honestly will. I have never been as picky about that as you have been. Remember how much you sulked over that Quincy apartment when I was in med school?”

“It was in _Quincy_ , Nicholas.”

“You fucking loved that apartment,” Nicholas pointed out mildly. “But anyway, you have vicious highs and lows when it comes to where we’re living, whereas I don’t. As long as there’s enough space that we’re not suffocating each other, and the kitchen’s big enough for me to make pickles, and there’s space for the record collection, I don’t really care. City penthouse, house in the suburbs, I’m not the one of the two of us who feels keenly when he’s living in a space that’s at odds with him.”

“I know,” said Elliot mournfully, “but this space isn’t _you_.” The mention of the Quincy apartment had reminded him. That apartment had been _so_ Nicholas, and Elliot suddenly missed living in that essence of him all around. Their apartment now just seemed so impersonal and cold to Elliot. Anyone could have lived there.

“This space isn’t _us_ ,” corrected Nicholas, “which is more important.”

“I don’t think I was ready to think about a house in the suburbs six months ago,” Elliot said.

“I know,” said Nicholas.

“I think I’m ready now,” said Elliot.

“I know,” said Nicholas.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” said Elliot.

“Don’t,” said Nicholas. “Stop. I never mind waiting for you, and you know it.”

He never did mind, and every damn time Elliot realized anew how patiently Nicholas had been waiting for him to make a decision on something, it made Elliot love him so much more than the impossible amount he already loved him.

Elliot pushed Nicholas onto his back so he could straddle him and kiss him and then said, as the thought suddenly occurred to him, “Wait, if we get a house with a yard, can we get a dog?”

Nicholas, after a moment, started laughing.

***

They selected towns based on a variety of agreed-upon factors including Nicholas’s commute downtown and Elliot’s opinions on the town square businesses and the farmers’ markets.

“We never go to farmers’ markets,” Nicholas pointed out.

“But we _should_ ,” Elliot said.

“Farmers’ markets are for people who cook. We should also do that,” said Nicholas.

“Let’s not get too crazy here,” said Elliot, which made Nicholas laugh.

The truth is Elliot did cook, or was learning how to, or something, slowly and haltingly and with lots of starts and stops. Nicholas had, under the tutelage of a med school friend, blossomed into a decent cook, but he wasn’t a comfortable one, and Elliot knew it. Elliot wanted to be a comfortable cook, the type who would be willing to experiment with whatever was in season at the farmers’ market, who would make up recipes and be adventurous and throw dinner parties and stuff.

Nicholas said to this fantasy, “I would absolutely love it if you want to turn into a gourmet cook, but I also I think there’s a possibility you’re just taken with the aesthetic of the idea.”

Nicholas was probably right about this but Elliot still thought it was a good idea to have an inspiring farmers’ market nearby. His mother agreed that was very important, so Elliot felt vindicated.

They went over their finances, a thing that Elliot was good at but that he hated to do, because although they lived within their means, of the two of them Elliot was far more likely to spontaneously splurge on big-ticket items, and Nicholas seldom blinked an eye, because they could afford Elliot’s periodic indulgences and also need for Blank Label shirts because _seriously_ , but Elliot sometimes looked at his wardrobe budget compared to Nicholas’s and winced. Really, he was wincing on Nicholas’s behalf. It was sad that Nicholas didn’t appreciate the joy of Blank Labels.

With their mortgage pre-approval in hand and a real estate agent in tow, they walked through house after house after house, and Elliot frowned through all of them.

Nicholas said eventually, as Elliot downed a comfort frappe after a long disappointing day, “If you’ve changed your mind about getting a house, it’s fine. I wouldn’t be angry.”

Elliot shook his head. “I haven’t changed my mind. In fact, I want a house more than ever. I just don’t want _these_ houses.”

Caroline kept sending him helpful listings. Blake kept sending him maps of possible places for Blake to do comedy routines, and why that was relevant to Elliot and Nicholas’s new place, Elliot didn’t want to know. Hazel was worried they’d have to go farther out for meetings now. Jonah said, “A house? My, how grown-up of you,” as if Elliot couldn’t even begin to contemplate the adultness of the world he was about to enter into. Jane just took him for drinks to let him vent about all the cold, impersonal houses when what he wanted was something warm and inviting that felt like stepping into Nicholas’s smile.

Jane said, “You don’t think that’s a lot to ask of a house you haven’t lived in yet?”

Elliot said, “I don’t know. Is it?”

Jane said, “Does Nicholas know that you’re looking for a house that _feels like his smile_?”

No. Nicholas didn’t. So Elliot told him, as they fumbled their way through making dinner together.

“You know,” he said, “Jane said I should tell you.”

“When did you see Jane?” Nicholas asked, sticking his thumb in his mouth, because he’d just burned it on the edge of the pan but was trying to pretend he hadn’t.

“Today,” Elliot said. “She took me a for a drink. She said I looked like I needed a drink. Also, she wanted me to give her a verdict on this new way she’s styling her hair.”

“What was the verdict?”

“Too, like, Ayn Rand.”

“Ayn Rand?” said Nicholas. “Jane is doing her hair like Ayn Rand?”

“Not since I pointed that out. I don’t know, I think she was going for an androgynous sort of Ji Chang-wook look but it wasn’t working.”

“Evidently,” said Nicholas.

“Anyway, we were talking about the house hunt.”

“Uh-huh,” said Nicholas. “And did she have insight?”

“She said that maybe I should tell you that I’m looking for a house that feels like your smile.”

Nicholas looked up from where he was frowning at the chicken breasts he was frying in oil. He said, “What?”

“I want to walk into the house and have it feel the way I feel when you smile at me,” Elliot said, feeling like an idiot now that he was saying it out loud. “Like home. I want it to feel like home. I don’t think that’s too much to ask of a house. Anyway, that’s why I’m being so picky. It’s not like things like your smile come around a whole lot. Really almost not at all. But that’s what I want. A place that makes me feel the way _we_ make me feel.”

Nicholas was staring at him. He said, after a long moment, “Elliot,” sounding a little strangled. It wasn’t really a tone Elliot could interpret. It was either a good tone or a why-are-you-being-so-absurd tone.

“Jane said it’s a lot to ask,” Elliot said defensively. “I don’t know. What do you think? Is that not how you’re thinking about the house? Do you not want to walk in and feel like it’s _us_?”

Elliot found himself suddenly shoved back against the kitchen counter, Nicholas’s mouth on his.

“Fuck,” Nicholas said thickly, drawing back as his hands unbuckled Elliot’s belt. “Sometimes you say things and you don’t even realize how much you _floor_ me. You want it to _feel like my smile_ , fuck.” Nicholas kissed him again, as he got a hand around him and stroked, and Elliot, dazed and surprised but certainly not complaining, groaned into Nicholas’s mouth and clutched at him to adjust the angle.

“Don’t you want--Don’t you want--” Elliot tried to say around the onslaught of Nicholas, but he wasn’t getting anywhere.

“I fucking want you,” Nicholas growled at him. “I always want you.” He dropped to his knees and gave Elliot a kitchen blowjob, and Elliot, dizzy with pleasure, let himself collapse to the kitchen floor afterward and let Nicholas dot tiny kisses all over his face, in that blend of lust and tenderness that Nicholas did so well and Elliot loved so much.

Nicholas was saying, “We will look--for a thousand years--if that’s what you want--until you find the house you want--that’s what we’ll do--”

Elliot stilled Nicholas by catching his face between his hands and looked at him for a long while, and thought of how much he’d complained about the Quincy apartment, and how much he’d come to love it, because it was where Nicholas had been, it was where Nicholas had eventually wrapped him up and stitched him into his life, and it was where Nicholas had taken him home and taken him apart, and there had been so much sex over all the Quincy apartment, and so many of Nicholas’s smiles, and that was what Elliot needed. Elliot needed to walk into a space and envision them in it, and then it would be okay.

The smoke alarm went off while they were still staring at each other.

***

The next morning, Nicholas came out of his shower and poured himself a cup of the coffee Elliot had made and looked at Elliot, sitting on the Berkshires couch in the bright morning sunshine with a computer on his lap. Elliot insisted he needed a home office in the new house. In fact, Elliot insisted he needed multiple home offices. But Nicholas was pretty sure Elliot worked entirely out of their living room.

“I had a thought,” Nicholas said, and carried his coffee into the living room, grabbing the bagel Elliot had left out for him on the way.

“Hmm?” Elliot looked up from his computer. Ian Purrtis and Jane Pawsten were already snuggled up tight against him. Tumble came over to say hello to Nicholas. Shenanigan was probably getting into trouble, because Shenanigan generally was.

“You want a house that feels like my smile.”

Elliot looked embarrassed. “Yeah, so, forget I said that--”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nicholas said mildly. “I’m not forgetting you said that. I’m never forgetting you said that. It was an amazing thing to say.” Nicholas sat on the couch next to Elliot and looked at him.

Elliot had his uncertain look on, the one he wore when he felt exposed and vulnerable, the one Nicholas had watched him cover up for years, and Nicholas liked that it didn’t get covered anymore but wished it would just stop existing, since Elliot didn’t need to be uncertain, ever, about how Nicholas might react to him. He liked that he at least saw it less and less these days.

Nicholas said, “I’ve been trying to think, practically, about what that means for our house hunt.”

“Right,” said Elliot. “It means I’m being ridiculous. Like, just--”

Nicholas shook his head, smiling, because Elliot was just so _Elliot_. “You don’t think you’re being ridiculous. You think that other people might think that and so you’re trying to pretend you agree, but I know that you don’t. You think that it makes perfect sense to find a house that feels like a smile. So I’ve been thinking about your smile, and how it makes me feel, and I get it. I get what you’re going for. You want something dear, and familiar. You want something that makes you feel impossibly content every single time you see it, impossibly fond, impossibly in love. It makes total sense to me that you want a house that feels like my smile, because when I stop to think about it, your smile to me _is_ home. You’re just saying you want a house that feels like home.”

Elliot, eyes wide, nodded mutely.

“Okay,” Nicholas said, and leaned in to kiss him, because he couldn’t help it.

Elliot immediately fisted his hands into Nicholas’s shirt and kissed him back, making a little noise in his throat.

Nicholas said, around their kisses, “You want a home that feels warm--and familiar--and inspires adoration in you--”

“Yes,” Elliot said breathlessly, nodding and kissing all at once. “That’s what I’m looking for.”

Nicholas allowed himself a twinge of relief at getting onto the same page as Elliot. It was grating to be out-of-step with him, when they so seldom were, and he’d known Elliot was frustrated by the house search and he hadn’t really understood why. Now that it made sense to him, it was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. He knew what Elliot wanted and he could give it to him. This was always Nicholas’s preferred state of being.

He kept kissing Elliot for a little while, a sweet, untroubled, bright sort of kiss, and then pulled back and smoothed down Elliot’s hair, which Elliot hadn’t bothered to comb yet, and said, “I doubt we’re going to find that immediately. I doubt we’re ever going to walk into somebody else’s home and feel like it’s ours. It just doesn’t seem likely. What do you think?”

Elliot frowned. “I think we should be able to get close. I think we should be able to feel the _potential_.”

“Yeah.” Nicholas grinned, pleased at how _right_ his conclusion was going to turn out to be. “Yeah, I agree. We should be able to see the potential. Which I think is why we should get a fixer-upper. We’ll get a house that needs to be made entirely over, so we can make it entirely over into _ours_. What do you think?”

Elliot was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “Nicholas. This sounds like the most amazing shenanigan I’ve ever heard.”

***

The house took forever and Elliot loved every second of it, even the seconds he claimed not to love. But he loved sitting with Nicholas and thinking seriously about kitchen counter choices and unnecessary walls and only once or twice did their contractor threaten to quit over Elliot’s exacting standards. Elliot persevered and triumphed over the contractor’s appalling lack of aesthetic and eventually he and Nicholas got to hire movers and settle all of their stuff in, including their Berkshires couch. And after the movers left, they stood on the front porch together and regarded their front door.

Nicholas said, “Is one of us supposed to carry the other over the threshold?”

Elliot said, “That seems like overkill.”

Nicholas said, “I didn’t think you knew what that word meant.”

Elliot grinned at him and in the end they stepped over the threshold together and christened the new house right there in the front foyer.

They moved in winter, and they waited until the summertime to throw a housewarming party, so they could take advantage of the new backyard to have a barbecue. The cats, horrified by all the visitors, disappeared, but the two puppies they’d adopted--Elliot had lobbied hard for two instead of one, worried that one puppy would be lonely--bounced around outside and got underfoot and Elliot kept explaining that one was named Karl Barx and the other was named Schemer.

The guest list was a mix of friends and family, from Elliot’s parents to their knot of college friends to new neighbors to Nicholas’s med school friends and current colleagues. Elliot, who refused to ever go into the office, didn’t have colleagues but did invite locals he knew from his many social media accounts, who were delighted to meet the dogs that had invaded Ian Purrtis’s Instagram and sad the cats were hiding.

Elliot and Nicholas shared grilling duties, which basically meant they stood together at the grill cursing their inability to cook things without burning or dramatically undercooking.

“They’re hamburgers, not Eggos,” Nicholas said. “Why have we never gotten any better at this?”

Which made Elliot laugh, he couldn’t help it, and suggest they offer their guests Eggos, and Nicholas shut him up with a kiss, and it was an absolutely heavenly day.

Elliot, because he was Elliot, got embroiled in a conversation with Blake about maps and diamonds, Elliot didn’t really follow it. Caroline’s new boyfriend seemed to be taking it very seriously, though, asking questions all about it. Meanwhile Hazel kept trying to turn the conversation to her latest project--something with origami--and Jonah just stood to the side looking endlessly amused in that way he had.

Elliot finally extricated himself from Blake and immediately stumbled upon Jane, in deep conversation with the person who ran one of the premiere queer Boston Twitters, and left them to it, circling back through the crowd and making sure everyone was happy and didn’t need anything.

Nicholas he found hard at work with a small gaggle of children belonging to his med school friends and colleagues, trying to get the sprinkler to be a level acceptable to all of the ages who wanted to jump through it. Elliot leaned against one of the deck’s columns and watched the production, the way Nicholas glanced up from the sprinkler adjusting to listen to every child’s contribution with complete and utter gravity, responding to them in kind, and then every once in a while his whole face would unexpectedly light up with a grin and he’d reach forward to bestow a quick tickle and the child would giggle with delight in response. Eventually the sprinkler was settled on a height the older children endorsed, and Elliot watched Nicholas swing the younger children up into his arms, two at a time, and dart through the sprinkler with them so they wouldn’t be afraid. The kids shrieked with glee and clapped their hands and Nicholas by chance happened to look and catch Elliot watching and winked at him.

The party eventually reached a tipping point where everyone started trickling their way home, and Elliot and Nicholas stood on the front porch together and said good-byes, and the very last group to leave was Nicholas’s current colleagues, who they’d been to dinner with several times and who Elliot liked.

“The house is beautiful,” Roxanne said. “Seriously so beautiful. It must have been the most enormous project.”

“Oh,” said Nicholas lightly, and tossed an arm around Elliot’s shoulders. “That was all Elliot. He loves a good shenanigan.”

“See that?” Roxanne said to her wife. “This is how they keep the passion alive in their relationship. _Shenanigans_.”

Nicholas laughed but later that night, in the middle of their warm, cozy bedroom, surrounded by the soft, tactile fabrics that covered their bed, Nicholas stopped kissing Elliot long enough to say, “Your shenanigans _are_ very sexy.”  

 


End file.
